So I go to the website and they're playing Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" (which Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas sings background on -- I think Chyna Phillips and Carnie Wilson also do -- of Wilson Phillips fame).

Then came Helen Reddy's "Delta Dawn" followed by Karyn White's "Ritual of Love."

So it's clearly a station that's free form and only need/requirement is that the singer be a woman.

I've bookmarked it and plan to go back.

The audio quality is really good. It's been awhile since I've streamed a music radio station online.

Thursday, April 24, 2014. Chaos and violence continue, Reider Vissar
sticks up for Nouri (again) and fails to grasp hyperbole, Nouri
continues killing civilians in Falluja, campaigning continues in Iraq, a
cleric is kicked out of Bahrain, and much more.

As I stated in yesterday's snapshot:If Joel Wing or Reidar Visser see themselves as left, my apologies to
them. Although both have bent to Nouri's will too often for my tastes, I
don't see them as right or left but more centrist analysts.

Skepticism of any report is a good thing when approaching one. But
after you've read it -- I'm not sure Visser read it all -- your
criticism needs to be sound.

A colleague of Nouri al-Maliki's says he never smiles. That's in the
opening of the article. As I noted on Sunday: "His intro should have
been redone, it's a nightmare, but otherwise the writing is better than
okay." The never smiles remark is what as known as hyperbole.

Yet Visser makes this his first 'fact check' and maintains, "This
assertion can be easily falsified by a simple Google Image search,
and one assumes the longstanding Maliki associate is talking to Filkins
because he is not any longer such a close associate and that maybe that,
in turn, may explain the perceived absence of smiles."

Again, it is hyperbole. Visser calls his own competence as a media critic by failing to grasp hyperbole.

Then Visser wants to insist:

In his description of the 2010 government formation process, Filkins
asserts that the Iraqi federal supreme court ruling that formally
enabled post-election coalition forming “directly contradicted the Iraqi
constitution”. This is just untrue. The problem is that the Iraqi
constitution is mute when it comes to the relationship between electoral
lists and parliamentary blocs. It just says the biggest parliamentary
bloc will nominate the premier, and the supreme court simply repeated
that sentence, with the addition that pre-election and post-election
formation should be considered on an equal footing.

Visser's wrong and I can quote him. Why can't he -- or more importantly -- why won't he quote Filkins?

This is the section that Visser badly summarizes:

In parliamentary elections the previous March, Maliki’s Shiite
Islamist alliance, the State of Law, had suffered an embarrassing loss.
The greatest share of votes went to a secular, pro-Western coalition
called Iraqiya, led by Ayad Allawi, a persistent enemy of the Iranians.
“These were election results we could only have dreamed of,” a former
American diplomat told me. “The surge had worked. The war was winding
down. And, for the first time in the history of the Arab world, a
secular, Western-leaning alliance won a free and fair election.”But
even though Allawi’s group had won the most votes, it had not captured a
majority, leaving both him and Maliki scrambling for coalition
partners. And despite the gratifying election results, American
officials said, the Obama Administration concluded that backing Allawi
would be too difficult if he was opposed by Shiites and by their
supporters in Iran. “There was no way that the Shia were not going to
provide the next Prime Minister,” James Jeffrey, the American Ambassador
at the time, told me. “Iraq will not work if they don’t. Allawi was a
goner.”

Shortly after the elections, an Iraqi judge, under
pressure from the Prime Minister, awarded Maliki the first chance to
form a government. The ruling directly contradicted the Iraqi
constitution, but American officials did not contest it. “The intent of
the constitution was clear, and we had the notes of the people who
drafted it,” Sky, the civilian adviser, said. “The Americans had already
weighed in for Maliki.”

Now Reidar Visser, I've tried to be nice. I haven't been linking to my piece "A crackpot runs AFP, Al Jazeera and the Christian Science Monitor"
about how you thought you were being followed, that FBI posed as CIA,
that you were harassed in US libraries and all the other things we
should just leave behind. But when you wrote your nonsense today,
Reidar, you indirectly slammed me with voice mails as various friends in
journalism called to tell me how accurate my call on you in that piece
was.

Flikins is correct, Emma Sky is correct.

And, yes, I was correct. This was one of the big things that I can
remember Reider and 'others' getting wrong in real time that we went
over and over.

It was a violation of the Constitution and maybe Reider doesn't quote
Emma Sky from Dexter's report because he realizes she has a lot more
credibility than he does?

Reidar doesn't not know the law. When we're making arguments about the
Iraqi Constitution here, it's usually pointed out to me by one of two
Iraqis who actually worked on the Constitution (and one of them was a
source for Dexter's article, by the way). I then look at the points
they're making, walk through them with friends and then present them
here. And unlike Reidar Visser, I understand Constitutional Law and
aced that and other legal courses.

Equally true, until Nouri made public the secret judgment (which he
sought before the election but didn't share), the operating belief was
clear -- and was used in 2006 after the December 2005 parliamentary
elections. Also true, the judges don't make law in Iraq. But that's
what they did with their ruling for Nouri.

Filkens is correct in his report, Reidar Visser is wrong and he's so
appalling wrong that he's already chopping off the legs to any sort of
comeback he might have. His devotion to Nouri al-Maliki is apparently
greater than his own need for self-preservation.

He's as embarrassing as the eunuchs attempting to serve War Criminal Tony Blair.

Take the ridiculous Jonathan Russell (Left Foot Forward) who screeches, "Tony Blair’s Bloomberg speech yesterday on the Middle East has been
roundly criticised from various commentators, most of whom seemed to
have not read or heard the actual speech. Brand Blair is considered
toxic because of his legacy in Iraq, but the danger is that his valid
arguments about Islamist extremism are lost." We covered that speech in yesterday's snapshot.

Here's a little tip for Jonathan Russell, something most people know --
all of those of who don't suffer from wet dreams about Tony Blair.
He's not Einstein. Tony Blair's not even an original thinker. There's
nothing he adds that's particular to him. His message is already being
tossed around -- by neoconservatives.

2. Tony Blair is a supporter of extremism
around the world, whether it be the dictators in Saudi Arabia and
Kazakhstan, the despots ruling the oil states Kuwait and Bahrain, or
Israel’s apartheid regime that occupies Palestinian land in
contravention of international law and countless UN resolutions. When
prime minister, not content with waging illegal wars, he was up to his neck in CIA torture and kidnapping ’every step of the way’.

3. Tony Blair defends and applauds the
military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government in
Egypt, saying that it ‘was the absolutely necessary rescue of a nation’.
He was a supporter of the Egyptian dictator Mubarak, calling him
“immensely courageous and a force for good”,right up to the day he was
overthrown in a popular revolution by the Egyptian people.

4. Tony Blair blindly ignores the
catastrophes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, as he endlessly promotes
more western military intervention, whether it be in Syria, Iran or
beyond.

Repeating, Tony Blair is not an original thinker. His only value would
be to popularize some theme or argument; however, his image is so
negative that he can't even manage that. His attempts to act as a
megaphone will only harm any message someone wants to get out.

Let's stay on this cult of personality nonsense for a moment.

Anyone can get taken in, that's always a possibility. But rational
adults can realize they've been conned. Equally true, someone can
support a Blair and then a Blair -- or a Nouri -- can morph into
something else. At which point, the rational adult can walk away from
supporting the person.

I won't support Hillary Clinton if she runs for president.

Some will.

That's their choice, that's their business.

For me, I think it was a slap in the face to her supporters for her to
serve in Barack's administration. It was four years of her supporters
having to defend her daily because the partisans blamed her for
everything. They worked overtime to deny her the presidential
nomination but then treated the Secretary of State as though she were
the president and slammed for what the administration did. Barack hid
behind her skirts and I think Hillary betrayed the support she had by
playing 'good soldier.'

As a US senator she opposed the so-called 'surge' in Iraq. As we now
know from former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, Hillary only opposed it for political reasons/posturing.

That's actually fine with me. And it's one of the few things she truly
shares with her husband. He was ridiculed for polling when he was
president. But that was about listening to the American people. So
Hillary listening to the people and opposing the surge? I applaud that.

It's why, in January of 2008, I realized I'd support her for president.
1) She would poll, she would listen. 2) She wasn't being fawned over.
Her supporters wanted her to fight for them. They weren't ooohing and
aaaweing over the baby fawn emerging from the forest.

So she'd be held accountable -- by the right, by the left, by the
center. We've not seen with Barack. We've seen a craven media fawn
over him (and CBS really needs to address Sharyl Attkison's charges --
with one Rhodes brother in the administration and the other over CBS
News, the network really needs to address this). We've seen a faux left
spend his first four years in office attacking Hillary so as not to say
an unpleasant word about Barack.

Medea Benjamin writes and co-writes entire articles on The Drone War that overlook the person in charge of it: Barack Obama.

This is exactly what so many of us expected if he won the nomination.

That was 2008.

It's 2014 and Hillary's time in the administration coarsened her and
amplified her bad habits. When she went into her screaming fit before
Congress -- that's not how you act before Congress, especially not when
you're serving in an administration -- it was obvious how far gone she
was.

If I were a Cult of Personality -- or a liar -- I'd just smile and say, "Hillary's so wonderful . . ."

Reider can't walk away from Nouri.

He's not the only one.

And the damage there?

Well Emo youth in Iraq were targeted and it took forever for it to get
attention in the US media -- the US music media did a better job of
covering it than the news media ever did and the Denver Post was the
only mainstream newspaper to treat the issue seriously.

Emo was portrayed as vampires, devil worshipers and gay. All of that combined was what an Emo was.

And this was portrayed by? Employees of the Ministry of the Interior
who went into schools and lectured children and young adults about how
'evil' the Emo was and how the country of Iraq had to be protected from
these people.

There is no Minister of the Interior. Nouri refused to nominate anyone
for that post. In fact, he refused to nominate anyone to head any of
the security ministries. Back in July 2012, Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) observed,
"Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has struggled to forge a lasting
power-sharing agreement and has yet to fill key Cabinet positions,
including the ministers of defense, interior and national security,
while his backers have also shown signs of wobbling support." Those
positions were supposed to have been filled before the end of December
2010. They were not. They are still not filled.

Nouri refused to fill
them because once the Iraqi Parliament confirms a nominee, that nominee
is autonomous. Nouri can't fire them, only the Parliament can. (Which
isn't easy. Nouri's gotten Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi convicted
of 'terrorism' and sentenced to death with the Baghdad courts he
controls but he can't get Parliament to strip Tareq of his title.)

As Ayad Allawi pointed out in January of 2011, Nouri was not going to
nominate people for these posts because he was conducting a power grab.

That's what it was.

The people 'in' those posts today are not in those posts. They were not
nominated so they don't have Parliament's approval. Without that, they
serve at the will of Nouri. He can dismiss them because they don't
really exist. This has allowed him to control the security ministries.

So when the Ministry of Interior went around to schools with their hand
outs and their demonization of Emo and encouragement of violence against
Emo? That was Nouri.

And Cult of Nouri prevented this very serious issue from getting immediate attention.

The few that cover Iraq in the US didn't want to touch it. Just like they ignored the Hawija massacre last year (Marcia noted it last night).

And maybe some, like Reidar Visser, got so into Nouri that it became
more important to their own image and name that they refused to note
reality to protect both Nouri and themselves.

As we've seen repeatedly, when they self-stroke, Iraqis die from violence.

Nouri doesn't want a partner-sharing government. He made that clear in
his second term -- a term he only got by signing a legal contract (The
Erbil Agreement) promising to implement a power-sharing government. Now
he's convinced he can form a majority government if he wins the April
30th elections. (He's convinced he's going to win as well.) Today, Russ
Wellen offers "Maliki: One of the Wrongest Horses the U.S. Ever Backed" (Foreign Policy In Focus). Mushreq Abbas (Al-Monitor) reports:

Thus, the only possible way to realize the State of Law's proposals
for forming a majority government would be to jettison the two-thirds
requirement.But there are other factors that come to bear on the mechanisms of
forming a new government. Most saliently, every Iraqi government must
obtain at least 165 seats in parliament to win legitimacy.The Iraqi electoral reality will simply not allow any political party
to win that many seats, unless it forms a coalition with several other
forces.As for Maliki's State of Law bloc, according to most estimates, it
will have difficulty winning more than 80 seats in the current election.
Gaining an additional 85 seats will require forging alliances with
several parties amid the complex map of Iraqi partisan politics.

Nouri wants a third term. Trina weighed in on that last night, "Nouri's had two terms to fail in, it's time for a new prime minister." Xinhua reports: Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Salih al-Mutlak said on
Thursday that he opposes a third four-year term for current Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki, expressing his uncertainty for fair
parliamentary elections next Wednesday."I do not agree that the prime minister, Mr. al-Maliki, will take a
third term in office. I do not agree that any politician will take a
third term (of prime minister)," Mutlak said.

MP, Jawad al-Bazoni, confirmed that scenario after the elections
will be a compromise between the Citizen Coalition and other blocs that
feel closer to the Coalition.

He stated to All Iraq Agency "The Coalition will be the key side to the reach the compromise with the other blocs."Elaine notedNayla Razzouk, Khalid al-Ansary and Dana El Baltaji's Bloomberg News report
that Nouri was "banking on sales from the highest crude oil output in
35 years to earn him a third term." As always for Nouri, when he claims
'success,' fate slaps him in the face. Hard. Reuters notes
today, "Iraq's oil exports fell to
2.39 million barrels per day (bpd) on average in March, the oil
ministry said, down from a record 2.8 million in February due to
repeated sabotage of a northern pipeline." Poor Nouri, he's got the
reverse Midas touch -- whee everything he touches turns to s**t. Amir Taheri (Asharq Al-Awsat) points out:Incumbent Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki may yet win enough seats to
claim a chance to form another administration. However, even if he
manages to hang on, the government he would head would be different. The coalition that has sustained him in power has simply melted away.
Maliki’s core support—coming from one wing of the Al-Da’wah
party—accounts for around 11 percent of the electorate. Thus without
attracting other mainly Shi’a parties plus the Kurds and some Arab Sunni
groups, Maliki would not have been able to keep his post.In fact, if Iraqi politicians are mature enough they should be able
to construct a different coalition with someone other than Maliki as
prime minister.Criticizing Maliki may be easy, bearing in mind his government’s
failure to solve such mundane problems as the shortage of water and
electricity in Baghdad, not to mention rampant corruption that,
according to some Iraqis, has gone beyond the “normal” limits in
so-called developing countries.The least one could say is that the Maliki government is guilty of underachievement.

Iraq could have done much better.

Seven days from now, Iraq is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections. Osama al-Khafaji and Ghassan Hamid (Alsumaria) have noted that
there are 9032 candidates competing for 328 seats. Though Iraqis in
some parts of Anbar Province won't be allowed to vote and Iraqi refugees
in Syria won't be allowed to vote, Aswat al-Iraq notes
Majeed al-Sheikh, Iraq's Ambassador to Iran, declaring that Iraq will
allow voting in 11 Iranian cities. Michael Knights offers an analysis
of the upcoming elections -- the after-process -- here.
(No excerpt because what jumps out at me is a topic I'm tabling right
now. It has to do with the US government.) Project on Middle East
Democracy offers a roundup of opinions on the elections here. Lukman Faily is the Iraqi Ambassador to the US and he writes a laughable column for McClatchy on the elections. We'll note this:

The steady development of our oil industry is expected to generate $5
trillion over the next two decades. Iraq intends to use these revenues
primarily to rebuild our transportation; improve our education and
health care; and restore our electrical, water supply and sanitary
systems. All these endeavors, as well as others, offer investment
opportunities for American companies.

Oh, is that what will happen? Instead of going into the pockets of
crooks in government? Iraq's been pulling in billions throughout
Nouri's second term and there's no potable water. There is flooding.
Heavy rains can't be prevented -- and shouldn't be, Iraq needs water.
However, the flooding isn't just from the heavy rains. When water's
knee deep in Sadr City -- standing water -- it's because Nouri's refused
to put any of the money from the oil into upgrading the sanitation
system. The water doesn't drain because the sewage system is
inadequate. It stands until it dries up and/or is absorbed by the
ground.

Borzou Daragahi was part of the Los Angeles Times' Iraq team in the '00s. Today, he reports for the Financial Times of London.

Nigeria's Leadership notes:An Iraqi Minister survived an assassination attempt on Thursday,
police said in what was the second attempt this week in which a senior
government official was targeted.A roadside bomb hit the convoy of Youth Minister, Jassem Mohammed
near the area of Tuz Khurmato, some 170 kilometres North of Baghdad.

Violence aimed at candidates has become an election staple in Iraq.
It's become so 'normal' that it doesn't even raise an eyebrow or, for
that matter, condemnation publicly from the US State Dept or any other
US governmental body. Hamza Mustafa (Asharq Al-Awsat) reports:

"Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki accused his rivals of seeking to
place “obstacles” in the government’s counter-terrorism plans while
Parliamentary Speaker Osama Al-Nujaifi, head of the Sunni-led
Moutahidoun Coalition, accused Baghdad of allowing the unrest in the
restive western province of Anbar to continue in order to disrupt the
electoral process in Sunni-majority areas."

al-Nujaifi is correct. Nouri swore his assault on Anbar would be brief
when it began in December and, back in January, was saying it would be
wrapped up in weeks. It's April and ongoing.

As are his War Crimes. He continues to shell the residential neighborhoods of Falluja. NINA notes that four members of one family were left injured today when their homes was bombed. And NINA notes
a second round of bombing left 6 civilians dead and nine injured
"including two women and a child." Could someone help me out on when
Reidar Visser has used his 'keen legal mind' to call out these War
Crimes which are collective punishment and are internationally
recognized as War Crimes?

Meanwhile a Shi'ite cleric has been kicked out of Bahrain. Courtney Trenwith (Arabian Business) reports, "The Bahrain Interior Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, Hussein
Mirza Abdul Baqi Mohammed, known as Hussain Najati, was representing Ali
Al Sistani, the highest ranking Shia marja in Iraq and the leader of
the Islamic training centre Hawza in Najaf. A marja, similar to a grand
ayatollah, has the authority to make legal decisions under Islamic law." The forced exit is attracting attention. Press TV notes
Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian objected to the
expulsion and stated, "The problem with some parties inside the
Bahraini government is that they are not committed to effective
political dialogue." The United Nations Human Rights issued the following today:

Bahrain should stop persecution of Shi’a Muslims and return its citizenship to their spiritual leader

GENEVA (24 April 2014) – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on
freedom of religion or belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, today urged the
Government of Bahrain to stop the harassment and persecution of the most
senior religious leader of the Bahraini Shi’a Muslim community, who was
reportedly forced to leave his country following threats from state
security agents to arrest him and his son. “I have received information from reliable sources that on 23 April
Hussain Mirza Abdelbaqi Najati was forced to leave his own country for
Lebanon after being exposed to enormous pressure and harassment by the
authorities,” the human rights expert said.Following Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior own statement, issued on its
website on 23 April, it appears that the decision revoking Mr. Najati’s
Bahraini citizenship and the orders to expel him from the country may
have been made due to his position as a senior and influential religious
authority among Shi’a believers, who make up the majority of the
population. “I have expressed to the Government of Bahrain my grave concerns at
what appears to be an act of religiously motivated discrimination which
would seem to impose unjustified restrictions on Mr. Najati’s
fundamental human rights, including his right to practice and profess
peacefully his religious beliefs,” Mr. Bielefeldt stressed, warning that
the case may have far-reaching implications for Shi’s Muslim community
in the country. “Targeting the most senior and influential Shi’a religious figure in
Bahrain may amount to intimidating and thus discriminating against the
entire Shi’a Muslim community in the country because of its religious
beliefs,” the Special Rapporteur stressed. Mr. Najati is one of 31 individuals whose Bahraini citizenship was
revoked on 7 November 2012 by the decision of the Ministry of Interior, a
decision that rendered him stateless. In this regard the UN expert
urged the Government to reverse its decision, which appears to be
arbitrary, and to facilitate Mr. Najati’s return from Lebanon.“International law, in particular the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, prohibits arbitrary deprivation of nationality, including on
religious grounds,” the expert noted. “Discrimination on the grounds of
religion or belief constitutes a violation of human rights and
fundamental freedoms.” “I understand that Mr. Najati has consistently refrained from
engaging into politics, and has maintained his position and activities
strictly in the realm of his religion,” the Special Rapporteur said. “He
is not known to have advocated violence or its use, or to have
committed acts that would undermine national security or public order,
nor has he been charged or sentenced for committing such acts.” Heiner Bielefeldt assumed his mandate on 1 August 2010. As Special
Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, he is independent from any
government, and acts in his individual capacity. Mr. Bielefeldt is
Professor of Human Rights and Human Rights Politics at the University of
Erlangen-Nürnberg. From 2003 to 2009, he was Director of Germany’s
National Human Rights Institution. The Special Rapporteur’s research
interests include various interdisciplinary facets of human rights
theory and practice, with a focus on freedom of religion or belief.
Learn more, log on to: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/FreedomReligion/Pages/FreedomReligionIndex.aspx

About Me

I'm a black working mother. I love to laugh and between work and raising kids, I need a good laugh. I'm also a community member of The Common Ills. Shout outs to any Common Ills community members stopping by. Big shout out to C.I. for all the help getting this started. I am not married to Thomas Friedman, credit me with better taste, please. This site is a parody.